Ramana Maharshi Found the Root of All Suffering — And It Is Not What You Think

Ramana Maharshi Found the Root of All Suffering — And It Is Not What You Think

Author Name:Wise Lessons

Youtube Channel Url:https://www.youtube.com/@WiseLessons

Youtube Video URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUXLmmpgJ_U



Transcript:
(00:00) A man came to Ramana Maharshi whose son had died. A woman came who had not known a single day of peace in 30 years. A philosopher came who had read every scripture in three languages and still felt completely empty inside. A young man came who had renounced everything, wealth, >> [music] >> family, comfort, and was still suffering.
(00:24) And to every single one of them, no matter how different their story, no matter how unique their pain, Ramana gave the same answer. Not because he was not listening. Not because he was dismissive or indifferent. But because he had seen something that most of us miss entirely. Something so close to us we cannot see it.
(00:46) Something so obvious we look right past [music] it every time. The source of all your suffering is not what you think it is. We have come a long way in this series. In episode one, we asked, "Who are you? Really?" We found that the body, the mind, the personality, all of it comes and goes. What remains is awareness itself. In episode two, we found that the mind has no substance of its own.
(01:13) It is nothing but thoughts. And thoughts arise in [music] consciousness and dissolve back into consciousness like waves in the ocean. Now we come to the core of it. The diagnosis at the root >> [music] >> of everything. Ramana Maharshi said in his own words, "The cause of your misery is not in the life outside you.
(01:35) It is in you as the ego. You impose limitations on yourself and then make a vain struggle to transcend them. All unhappiness is due to the ego. With it comes all your trouble. Without it, there is no trouble. The ego." Now stop. Because I need to be precise here. This is not the ego in the way pop psychology [music] or self-help talks about it.
(01:59) This is not about arrogance or narcissism or pride. That is far too shallow. When Ramana says ego, he means something very specific, the I thought. The primal sense of being a separate self. The fundamental sense of I am this body, I am this mind, I am this person located here, separate from everything else, moving through a world that is happening to [music] me.
(02:26) That is the ego Ramana is pointing to, and he says it is the root of all suffering, not some suffering, not most suffering, all of it. Let us trace this carefully. Every form of suffering at its core requires a self that suffers. Grief requires [music] a self that has lost something. Fear requires a self that might lose something.
(02:50) Loneliness requires a self [music] that is separate from others. Anger requires a self that has been wronged. Boredom requires a self that is not being satisfied. Even the subtlest spiritual suffering, the sense of being far from God, far from peace, far from truth, requires a self [music] that is separate from those things.
(03:13) Remove the separate self even for a moment, and where does the suffering go? This is not a theory. You already know this from your own experience. Have you ever been so completely absorbed in something, so lost in a piece of music, in a moment of beauty, in deep prayer, in laughter with someone you love, that for a few seconds there was no you? No separate observer standing aside and monitoring the experience? In those moments, there was no suffering.
(03:42) Not because the circumstances changed, but because the self that suffers was temporarily absent. Ramana says, that is a glimpse. That is a flash of the natural state, the state you are always in underneath the ego's movement. But here is what makes this so difficult to grasp. The ego is not an object you can find and remove. It is not a thing inside you.
(04:09) It is a process. It is a movement. It is the mind's habit of identifying with the body mind instead of [music] resting in its source. Every morning when you wake up, the I appears. I am here. I exist. And then instantly, almost instantly, something attaches to it. I am tired. I am worried. I am behind. I am not enough.
(04:35) I am this person who needs to do these things. That attachment, the I am, this is the ego. Not the bare I am, which is just pure existence, >> [music] >> pure consciousness. But I am this particular thing, this particular body, this particular story. Ramana says the bare I am, the pure sense of existence without any object attached, [music] that is the self.
(05:03) The moment you add, I am this, I am that, I am a seeker, I am a sinner, I am enlightened, I am suffering, [music] the ego has appeared. And with the ego comes the entire structure of the dream. Now, the sleep teaching. Ramana [music] returns to deep sleep again and again throughout his teachings.
(05:24) And I want you to really hear this because it is one of the most liberating things he ever said. >> [music] >> Every single night you go to sleep. The ego dissolves completely. The I disappears. There is no person, no story, no problems. And in that state, [music] you are fine, more than fine. When you wake up, you say I slept beautifully.
(05:47) There was a quality of peace and rest in that state that the waking mind is always searching for and never quite finding. Ramana says, "That peace is your nature. That is what you actually are without the ego superimposed on it. The ego is the only thing standing between you and the peace you are always seeking.
(06:09) The Jnani, the one who has realized the self, lives in the waking state [music] what you experience every night in sleep. Fully awake, fully functioning, fully engaged with the world but without the ego, without the sense of being a separate self who must protect itself, advance itself, defend itself. That is liberation.
(06:30) Not a special state achieved through years of austerity. The removal of the one false belief that was covering what was always already present. So, why can't we just let the ego go? Because the ego is slippery. The moment you try to get rid of it, there is a self that is trying to get rid of the ego.
(06:52) The ego trying to kill the ego. You cannot solve the ego problem from inside the ego. This is why Ramana's method is not destruction. It is inquiry. He does not say, "Fight the ego." He does not say, "Suppress the ego." >> [music] >> He says, "Trace it. Find out where it comes from. Follow the I thought back to its source. Because at the source, it dissolves on its own.
(07:19) " He used this analogy. He said, "It is like using a stick to stir the funeral pyre. The stick burns along with everything else. The thought, 'Who am I?' used as an instrument of inquiry, eventually burns itself up along with the ego. And what remains cannot be expressed in words, but it can be lived.
(07:40) " Here is the practice for this episode. When something causes you pain, a worry, a conflict, a sense of lack, stop for a moment. Do not go into the content of the problem. Do not try to solve it. Instead, ask, "Who is suffering right now?" Not what is causing the suffering, who is the one suffering? Follow that.
(08:04) Find the I that is suffering. And then ask, "What is this I? Where is it? Can you find it as a solid, located thing? >> [music] >> Or does attention, when turned inward, find only open awareness, unable to locate a self?" That moment of not finding that [music] is the beginning of freedom. Ramana said, "All bad qualities center around the ego.
(08:29) When the ego is gone, realization results by itself. Like the sun that is always shining, but was simply covered by clouds. Remove the clouds, and the light was always there." In the next video, we cross the threshold. Ramana will take us directly into the question that even advanced seekers avoid. The question about death. About what happens to the I when the body stops.
(08:54) And what a 16-year-old boy discovered on the floor of a house in Madurai that answers not just the question of death, but the question of what you are right now, in this moment, as you are listening to these words. If this series found you, it was not an accident. Here is your question this week. Think of the thing you are most afraid of losing right now.
(09:18) Then ask yourself, without the ego that is afraid, without the separate self that needs that thing, would there still be suffering? Write what comes in the comments. You do not need to have an answer. Just sit with the question. >> Mhm.